PESAKA confident of eight golds

LIKE all subjective sports, it is the judges that decide who gets the gold medals, and silat is no different.

But with home ground advantage, the National Federation of Silat (Pekasa), are confident that Malaysia will bring in eight gold medals in the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games come Sept 8-17, in contrast to their last haul of three gold medals in the Jakarta Sea Games in 1997.

Pesaka felt they were cheated in the Jakarta Games, and felt that Malaysia should have bagged more gold medals, no thanks to unfair judging by the panel of juries.

"We are very confident of reaching the eight gold medal target set, because silat being a subjective sport, the host country usually have the advantage in gaining points," said Pesaka secretary-general Megat Zulkarnain Omardin in Shah Alam yesterday.

Megat felt the jury panel at the Jakarta Sea Games, whom he claims many were trained in Indonesia, were largely biased in favour of the hosts.

Also, with the appointment of Megat recently as the deputy secretary- general for the world governing body for silat, he feels Malaysia have more say in matters relating to the sport.

"Before this it was just Indonesia who had the biggest say, but now that Malaysia are part of the world governing body for the sport, we have more say. This we believe will make the judging in competitions fairer," said Megat.

Malaysia recently competed in the World Silat Championships in Jakarta last November, and came back with a haul of two gold, six silver and five bronze medals.

Sea Games trainees Zakri Ibrahim and Azlinda Ahmad won the gold medals.

"Besides a few disputes, we (Pesaka) have noticed in the recent World Silat Championships that the standard of judging is fairer compared to in 1997. This is a positive sign for the development of silat," said Megat.

As part of the preparation for the KL Games, the squad will be competing in the Open Silat Championships in May, at Pasir Gudang, Johor. The competition is expected to be competed by ten countries in the region.

"The reason the competition is held at Johor is because it is the venue for the coming Sea Games, and we want the exponents to be familiar to the place," said Megat.

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